Free Republic

Another story details the impromptu cocktail party that gathered around Thompson’s corpse — still in the kitchen chair — to drink Chivas and toast him. ‘‘It was very loving,’’ Anita Thompson is quoted as saying. ‘‘It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky.’’ Her husband’s death should be cheered, she says. ‘‘This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure.’’ That is either unhinged grief speaking or overripe counterculture leftism. Either way, it is grotesque.

The criminal probe into why former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger (search) illegally sneaked top-secret documents out of the National Archives (search) — possibly in his socks — has heated up and is now before a federal grand jury, The Post has learned.

......Consider this a case study of what may be the most fundamental problem of American politics. The Assembly in California is made up of a majority of very liberal Democrats and a minority of very conservative Republicans that is large enough to block any tax increase under state law. The districts are all either safe for Democrats or safe for Republicans. This year, not a single seat changed hands. This is done intentionally. Republicans might increase their clout if they were spread thinner over more areas, but the winners would almost certainly be more moderate if also more numerous. So...

If anyone has some major rehabilitation work to do in the new year, it is Teresa Heinz Kerry. As the Kerrys head for their swank vacation home this year without the press corps tallying how much it cost, or the Secret Service following too closely on the slopes, the might-have-been first lady and still extremely major philanthropist has some major thinking to do about the damage she did to her own reputation in the major run that just ended.

Winning a Democratic nomination has almost nothing to do with winning a general election. We've certainly proven that time and again. Tactics and strategy, manipulating the rules, understanding the game -- it's a different audience, and a different set of skills. Only Iowa, New Hampshire and a handful of other states get to pick the nominee. I think it's entirely possible Hillary could win the nomination, even if she couldn't get elected.

John Kerry left Vietnam after 4 months. He did so by invoking the regulation that allows recipients of three Purple Hearts to leave the country. If one or more of those Purple Hearts are fraudulent and/or self inflicted, doesn't that constitute desertion? George W. Bush was hounded endlessly by the left for supposed gaps in his NG service. They demanded and recieved numerous military records (inluding at one point dental records) to prove his service was genuine. If demands for his records was legitimate, then so are demands for Kerry's records.